4 ms·

No, you were not at all clear about what you wanted to achieve. From my reading, you simply berated someone on the internet for revealing something about themse

by amirmc 13y ago

No, you were not at all clear about what you wanted to achieve. From my reading, you simply berated someone on the internet for revealing something about themselves. I've never found that to be a productive way of convincing anyone of anything. You now say that the aim was to get repentance, when he's already stated he regrets it. At no point do you give advice about what he could/should do now to 'make up for his sins', apart from 'feel really bad'.

OrlandoSuave 13y ago
"At no point do you give advice about what he could/should do now to 'make up for his sins'" What do you want him to do to make up for it? Travel to China and tell the government to stop spying on their people using software he helped program?
- amirmc 13y ago
  Please re-read the thread as you've completely missed my point. I've not asked the person who 'confessed' to 'atone' for anything (that doesn't mean I agree with what happened). My problem is with the comment that does nothing more than lambast someone without providing anything constructive. Offering some comment on how to approach such a situation next time, or what he could now, or projects he might think about contributing to, or anything else that might be useful to the person who originally posted or others reading the thread. As it stands, it's not much better than an ad-hominem.
TeMPOraL 13y ago
The point wasn't to convince anyone of anything. The point was just to state, "I read what you wrote and I agree you fucked up seriously". The Internet is not a confessional and speaking your sins out loud here doesn't automatically absolve you. But that might be an impression one could get if the only responses were in the tone of "thank you for telling us, you're a brave and good man". So we need comments, like mr_spothawk's, that basically say "you're not a bad guy, but you fucked up; here's why and how exactly; let's hope we can all learn from this".

by amirmc 13y ago

OrlandoSuave 13y ago

"At no point do you give advice about what he could/should do now to 'make up for his sins'" What do you want him to do to make up for it? Travel to China and tell the government to stop spying on their people using software he helped program?

amirmc 13y ago
Please re-read the thread as you've completely missed my point. I've not asked the person who 'confessed' to 'atone' for anything (that doesn't mean I agree with what happened). My problem is with the comment that does nothing more than lambast someone without providing anything constructive. Offering some comment on how to approach such a situation next time, or what he could now, or projects he might think about contributing to, or anything else that might be useful to the person who originally posted or others reading the thread. As it stands, it's not much better than an ad-hominem.

TeMPOraL 13y ago

The point wasn't to convince anyone of anything. The point was just to state, "I read what you wrote and I agree you fucked up seriously". The Internet is not a confessional and speaking your sins out loud here doesn't automatically absolve you. But that might be an impression one could get if the only responses were in the tone of "thank you for telling us, you're a brave and good man". So we need comments, like mr_spothawk's, that basically say "you're not a bad guy, but you fucked up; here's why and how exactly; let's hope we can all learn from this".